**This is a dark romance, due to the subject material within the book. Heroine Heart is advised for readers of a mature nature and not suitable for any readers under 18. Read at your own discretion. Use of tough subject matter includes rape, substance abuse, and violence.**

“Are you serious right about now?” he asks me, his eyes wide and boring into me. “You’re asking me what’s wrong...”

“Yeah,” I say, gulping back against my dry throat. “You can’t be angry about this.”

“I can’t?” he queries, his eyebrows shooting up, his eyes widening.

“I deserve this,” I say, reiterating the words to make them real.

“Come here,” he orders gently, ignoring my plea.

I do as I’m told, moving toward him slowly. It’s as I get close enough, he reaches inside, placing a hand around my left wrist. He pulls my arm out and through the bars, forcing it to become outstretched and on show. His fingers begin to trail across the points which Santiago forced those needles into my veins, getting his immediate response to me on drugs. They left angry pinpricks across my skin, showing exactly where the high started.

“It’s nothing,” I tell him once more, trying my hardest to get my hand back from him.

He scoffs on that response, not letting me go. “What have they been forcing you to take?” He asks, his fingers falling away from the track marks.

“Heroin,” I whisper, my eyes dropping in shame.

“And you want some more?” he asks me, his eyes coming up to meet mine.

I don’t speak, I just bite down on my lip.

Javier’s face darkens once more, but he’s yet to let me go.

“You do don’t you?”

“It’s all I can think about,” I admit, shamefulness filters into my system, positioned right next to the deep rooted craving. “Just something to make me feel better.”

“It won’t help,” he tells me, trying to make me face up to the facts.

“It will... for a moment,” I admonish foolishly. I yank my arm away from him, moving a little further away from the bars. “It’ll help,” I say it more to appease my own fragile mentality, not to force Javier to believe me. “It will, Javier, it’ll make this all better.”

And now he sees the girl who was presented to him on his first day. The girl with the slow burning addiction and the eager need for punishment in order to justice her every sin.

I took everything that was dealt my way as a way of chastisement. My boss and his son had no idea they were helping a criminal get her penalty for being just as bad as everyone else. Now Javier sees it. He’s slowly seeing what Eighteen is really made of.

Kirsty is more than comfortable with talking to imaginary people - if it means they're writing a book!

She's a British author with a habit of bad jokes, dirty mindedness and a love of laughing at the worse possible times. She spends her time balancing a full-time job with writing while trying to up her reading game!